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Thursday, October 25, 2007

A Roll of the Dice-K

Forget that the Boston Red Sox thrashed the Colorado Rockies last night, 13-1, and may well be en route to the 2007 World Series championship. The franchise has sunk a huge chunk of its future into Daisuke Matsuzaka—$52 million over six years on top of $51.1 million just for the right to negotiate with “Dice-K.”

Boston has received a modest first return on its $103 million investment: 15-12, 4.40 ERA, 201K, plus three mediocre starts in this postseason.

One cannot blame Boston GM Theo Epstein for dishing out a fortune on a player with, at the time, zero Major League experience—he wanted to beat the rival New York Yankees to the punch in acquiring the next potential phenom.

Personally, had I been the Red Sox GM, I would have signed Dice Clay instead of Dice-K. With little going on in his career these days, Dice Clay could have been signed for a lot less than $103 million, and his array of filthy language would mow down hitters far more effectively than Matsuzaka’s array of filthy pitches.Hall of Famer Warren Spahn once said, “Hitting is timing. Pitching is upsetting timing.”